Six more women accuse conductor of assault
New allegations against Charles Dutoit emerge after Grammy winner’s denial
SAN FRANCISCO— Six more women have stepped forward to accuse prominent conductor Charles Dutoit of sexually assaulting them in the United States, France and Canada, including a musician who says the maestro raped her in 1988. The women say they were compelled to speak out after The Associated Press published a story Dec. 21 detailing accusations from three singers and a musician who said Dutoit forcibly restrained them, groped them and kissed them without permission.
The 81-year-old Grammy-winning conductor emphatically denied the accusations, but eight major orchestras immediately distanced themselves from him and two launched their own investigations.
The new accusers said they were angered by Dutoit’s initial denial. They said the Swiss-born conductor attacked them in Paris, Montreal and the United States over a four-decade period, starting in the late 1970s.
Dutoit had been principal conductor and artistic director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London. Hours after the AP sent Dutoit and the Royal Philharmonic detailed summaries of the new allegations, the orchestra announced Wednesday that he was leaving those posts.
Dutoit issued a statement saying he was “appalled and sickened” to be accused “of the heinous crime of rape.”
“I am shaken to the core by this bewildering and baseless charge. To this, I submit my categorical and complete denial,” he said.
Dutoit, who married Canadian violinist Chantal Juillet in 2010, was the artistic director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra between 1977 and 2002.
He resigned amid complaints from the Quebec Musicians’ Guild about “offensive behaviour and complete lack of respect for the musicians.” The woman who accused the conductor of raping her said the assault occurred when she was working with Dutoit at an orchestra on the East Coast of the U.S. She was then 28 and auditioning for an orchestra in early 1988 while he was guest-conducting. She said they were staying at the same hotel and rode the elevator together up to their shared floor one night.
“As soon as I got to my room, the phone rang. It was Maestro Dutoit,” she said.
Dutoit told her his luggage was broken and asked if she had a specific tool sometimes used to fix musical instruments. He invited her to come in when she brought it to his room, she said, first offering her a drink, which she declined. Within minutes, he forced himself on her, she said.
“He came closer to me and tried to kiss me, and held my head so strongly it ripped my earring out,” said the musician, now in her 50s. “He pinned my wrists to the wall and pushed me to the bed.
“His pants were down in a split second and he was inside me before I could blink.”
AP spoke with two male musicians who said she confided in them immediately after the encounter. One of them recalled she was afraid to be alone and said he served as her chaperone at subsequent concerts. Another said he urged her to report Dutoit to police but that she never did. “I was so afraid I would never be asked to play again,” she told the AP.
Each spoke on condition of anonymity to protect the musician’s identity and because they remain professional musicians and said they fear retribution within the industry. French soprano Anne- Sophie Schmidt was 31 in May 1995 when she was singing the principal female role in Debussy’s Pelleas and Melisande with Dutoit conducting the Orchestre National de France in Paris. On the day of a dress rehearsal at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, she said, she found herself in an empty hallway with the conductor.
“He came out of his dressing room and he jumped on me, pushed me against the wall and started to touch me everywhere, on my chest, between my legs. He forced me to kiss him. I fought back, and I pushed him away,” Schmidt, now retired from opera, said by phone in France.
Shortly after the opera’s run ended, she said, Dutoit dropped her from future recitals and concerts around the world, she said. Two of Schmidt’s friends told the AP she described the experience to them several years ago.
Musician Mary Lou Basaraba was in her early 20s and working as a journalist in the winter of 1977-78 when the Montreal Symphony Orchestra asked her to interview Dutoit for an in-house publication, she said. She said she was told Dutoit had specifically requested her for the interview, to be held at his apartment. Within minutes of her arrival, she said, Dutoit forced himself on her, kissing her and touching her breasts and crotch. “It was so uninvited, it was so crass,” Basaraba said.
Canadian soprano Pauline Vaillancourt said that Dutoit tried to force himself on her in March 1981 after inviting her to dinner “to discuss work” after her performance as a soloist with the Montreal Symphony.
As he drove her home, she said, he pulled the car into a dark spot, groped her breasts and legs and asked her to come back to his room. She said she pushed him away and insisted he drive her home.
Pianist Jenny Q. Chai, now 34, said she encountered Dutoit by chance after a Philadelphia Orchestra concert in the early 2000s. Chai had gone backstage hoping to meet acclaimed pianist Martha Argerich, one of Dutoit’s ex-wives, but instead was greeted by the conductor, who she said spoke with her, then leaned forward, kissing her cheeks and lips and trying to put his tongue in her mouth while touching her body.
And Fiona Allan, now 50, said Dutoit pushed her against the wall and put his hand on her breast when she delivered documents to his dressing room while interning in 1997 at the Tanglewood festival, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.